Mercer County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Mercer County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Mercer County spend about 53 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 221 hours, about 9.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 12% more time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 2.8 minutes.

Mercer County holds about 0.1% of Illinois's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Mercer County would save about 88 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,735 at the same national wage assumption used above.

Area	One-Way Commute	Daily Round-Trip	Yearly Time Spent	Estimated Yearly Cost	Local Road Traffic (VPD)
Mercer County	26.5 min	52.9 min	221 hrs/yr	$6,838	417
Illinois	23.6 min	47.3 min	197 hrs/yr	$6,104	1,547
United States	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,790	1,355

The estimated yearly cost applies a single national rule of thumb (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics average hourly earnings), not a measurement of wages in this area - treat it as a rough estimate, not a paycheck figure. Local road traffic counts, vehicles per day on non-highway roads, come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data.

Commute Time Map: Illinois Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

N

On average, it takes 26.5 minutes to get to work in Mercer County. That's 18% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 89% of counties in Illinois

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 10.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Mercer County

• Car: 87.1%
• Worked at Home: 10.1%
• Walked: 2.4%
• Other: 0.4%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Mercer County, versus 0.1% in Illinois.

Public transit is essentially absent in Mercer County, versus 5.8% in Illinois.

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Mercer County, versus 0.3% in Illinois.

Biking is essentially absent in Mercer County, versus 0.5% in Illinois.

Commute Mode Trends in Mercer County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Mercer County get to work, as a share of all workers aged 16 and over, across 16 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) releases from 2009 to 2024. Each release is a 5-year estimate: the 2024 figures cover surveys taken from 2020 to 2024. Because neighboring releases share most of their survey years, the lines move gradually, and a sudden change such as the rise of remote work in 2020 spreads across several releases. Hover over or tap a line to highlight it, and use the legend to show or hide a mode. Driving starts hidden so the smaller modes stay readable.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Other
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	91.6%	5.9%	1.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	91.0%	6.3%	1.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2011	90.7%	6.7%	1.5%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	91.2%	5.5%	1.9%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2013	91.9%	5.4%	1.4%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2014	92.6%	4.9%	1.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2015	93.5%	4.2%	1.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%
2016	94.1%	4.0%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2017	94.1%	4.2%	0.8%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	94.0%	4.3%	0.7%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	93.9%	4.1%	0.8%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	92.4%	5.5%	0.9%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	91.7%	5.5%	1.5%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	89.9%	7.1%	2.3%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	89.4%	7.8%	2.2%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	87.1%	10.1%	2.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2016 at 94.1%. Overall it fell from 91.6% in 2009 to 87.1% in 2024, down 4.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Mercer County: its share of workers rose from 5.9% in 2009 to 10.1% in 2024, up 4.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Mercer County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Mercer County?

The bars show when commuters in Mercer County leave home for work, as a share of everyone who commutes (people who work from home are not counted), from the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates. The thin violet marks show Illinois for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Mercer County8.9% Illinois5.6%	8.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Mercer County5.8% Illinois4.3%	5.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Mercer County8.7% Illinois4.9%	8.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Mercer County13.6% Illinois9.0%	13.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Mercer County11.2% Illinois9.4%	11.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Mercer County15.5% Illinois14.3%	15.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Mercer County9.9% Illinois11.6%	9.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Mercer County6.1% Illinois11.2%	6.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Mercer County3.6% Illinois5.2%	3.6%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Mercer County3.1% Illinois6.1%	3.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Mercer County0.9% Illinois2.9%	0.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Mercer County2.1% Illinois1.5%	2.1%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Mercer County5.5% Illinois7.7%	5.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Mercer County5.1% Illinois6.3%	5.1%

Mercer County Illinois Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Mercer County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 23.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Illinois: 42.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (16.6%) leave at 9 AM or later, which usually points to shift work, flexible hours or part-time jobs.

When people leave matters as much as how far they go. Rush-hour traffic shrinks how much ground a 20-minute trip covers, so a trade area drawn as a simple circle often takes in neighborhoods that customers or staff would never drive from and misses others that are an easy trip. A drive-time zone, also called an isochrone, outlines every place within a set number of minutes of an address, which makes it the more honest way to size a store's catchment, a hiring area or the commute from a new home.

See it for yourself on the interactive map: click any spot in Mercer County, pick a 5, 10, 15 or 30-minute drive and see the local demographics of the people who live within that exact drive time.

Is Mercer County Waking Up Earlier? Typical Departure Time, 2009-2024

Each line follows the typical (median) departure time: the moment by which half of commuters have already left home. Higher on the chart means a later start. Setting Mercer County next to Illinois and the U.S. shows whether local mornings are drifting earlier or later than everyone else's. The figures span 16 ACS 5-year releases, so changes build up gradually rather than jumping from one year to the next.

• Mercer County
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Mercer County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:11 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:04 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:04 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:08 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:05 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:07 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:09 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:11 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:13 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:08 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:09 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:04 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Mercer County were on the road by 7:04 AM, 10 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:14 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Mercer County now leave 34 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Mercer County has moved 10 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Mercer County in the whole series.

How does Mercer County's commute time compare?

Metric	Mercer County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	26.5 min	23.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.1%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.4%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Mercer County is 26.5 minutes, longer than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 2.4% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau